Apple Plans To Add More Diverse And Ethnic Emojis

When you browse through the emojis on your phone, there are very few non-Caucasian ones to choose from. I mean, they have a water buffalo but no representation of people of color? That’s why, as an emoji addict, I’m glad that Miley Cyrus and “Baby Daddy” star (and lil bro to Tia and Tamera Mowry), Tahj Mowry, have brought up the lack of diversity in the 400-plus emojis.

After thinking about what Tahj wrote, I decided to go straight to the top of Apple to find out if they were planning to issue a new, more diverse, set of emojis. So who better to reach out to than Apple CEO Tim Cook? Within a day we got a response! After Tim read my email, he forwarded it on to Katie Cotton, vice president of worldwide corporate communications for Apple.

Katie told me exclusively:

“Tim forwarded your email to me. We agree with you. Our emoji characters are based on the Unicode standard, which is necessary for them to be displayed properly across many platforms. There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard.”

We’re stoked that they’re working to update the emojis (insert clapping hands, y’all!) but there’s no word yet on a planned rollout date. As always, Apple is keeping us in suspense, but here’s hoping it’s sooner than, say, the … iPhone 20.